Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
5/1/2015
Expressing concern about Russia’s recent behavior, including its alleged violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and invasion of Ukraine, two Republican Senators this week criticized Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement this week that a 2013 U.S. offer to Russia for bilateral nuclear weapon reductions below New START levels remains on the table. “We know that we can cut back even further, and President Obama has made clear our willingness, readiness, now, to engage and negotiate further reductions of deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third below the level set by New START,” Kerry said in remarks on the first day of the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. “Let me underscore: That offer remains on the table, and we urge the Russians to take us up on it.” New START requires the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic deployed warheads to 1,550 each by 2018.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called for the Administration to reconsider, though, and disputed the logic of any nuclear reduction negotiations given Russian officials’ recent behavior. “I cannot fathom a world in which we would see that it would make any sense at all for us to negotiate further nuclear reductions with Russia, when Russia is in violation of existing treaty obligations and Russia is behaving the way that it is toward neighbors like Ukraine,” he said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “I cannot fathom it, and I don’t think the American people can support it, and I hope this Administration will reconsider that very ill-considered policy.”
In a separate statement, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Senate would treat such one-third reductions a “naïve non-starter,” and said the United States should upgrade its nuclear stockpile instead of proposing reductions. “It simply defies common sense to negotiate nuclear reductions with Vladimir Putin while Russia occupies Crimea, destabilizes Ukraine, and violates the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,” McCain said. “As Russian aggression threatens the peace of Europe, the United States should focus on modernizing our nuclear deterrent to secure our national interests and protect our allies.”
Kerry Calls on Russia to Return to INF Compliance
Kerry called on Russia to return to INF compliance at the RevCon. “I want to emphasize our deep concerns regarding Russia’s clear violation of its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,” Kerry said in his remarks. “For decades, that treaty has contributed to the peace and the security in Europe and Asia. And there is no reason–no reason–to create new dangers by undermining it now.” Released in July, the State Department’s annual report on arms control stated that Russia had violated the INF Treaty by developing a ground-launched cruise missile in the agreement’s prohibited range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. Russia has denied the allegation. Kerry also called for resumption of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) as a pathway for arms control and a legal prohibition on use of nuclear weapons.
While lawmakers have recently criticized the Administration’s current approach to bring Russia back into INF compliance as too slow, Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command/Supreme Allied Commander, during this week’s SASC hearing defended Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State Arms Control and International Security, as a diligent negotiator throughout the process. “Secretary Gottemoeller is pushing pretty hard on this, and that’s the first stage of this is to try to do this through those kinds of conversations, so I am actually maybe a little more optimistic than you sound at this point on Rose Gottemoeller’s efforts and how she’s working it,” Breedlove said in response to a question by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who called current U.S. negotiations a “back-and-forth, cat-and-mouse game.”
Should Russia remain in presumable noncompliance, countermeasures include deploying countervailing strike capabilities to enhance U.S. or allied forces, as well as counter-force capabilities to prevent intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missile attacks. Breedlove did cite his concerns and a need to address Russia’s relationship with INF, but added that Russia’s demonstrated willingness to redraw international borders, and “not the nuclear piece,” is destabilizing Europe.
